adminPROMINENT businessman Mr Clemence Kunzekweguta has praised one of Bulawayo’s primary schools, Riverside Stimulation Centre, which caters for pupils with various disabilities, for defying all odds to achieve academic excellence.
Speaking at Riverside Stimulation Centre’s speech and prize giving day ceremony on Friday, Mr Kunzekweguta applauded the teaching staff for the tremendous workmanship, dedication and commitment they have exhibited towards imparting requisite academic knowledge to children with varying disabilities.
Last year, the school recorded a 100 percent pass rate in Grade 7 national examinations and in 2013 it was also honoured with a Secretary’s Bell’s Merit Award.
The school located in the low density suburb of Manningdale was built in 1989 and has an enrolment of 160 pupils of which 40 percent have various forms of disabilities, cerebral palsy, hyperactivity disorder, autism, traumatic brain injury, down syndrome and speech and language impairments.
“Riverside Stimulation Centre is one such school that offers and practices inclusive education and as such you enjoy each other’s uniqueness and celebrate individual differences. The results we obtain in the school bear testimony to that. Last year our Grade 7s posted 100 percent pass rate.
“There is no other way to describe this other than excellent. We achieved results that beat those schools that think are better than us,” Mr Kunzekweguta said.
He said the integration of pupils with varying abilities be it physical, mental, emotional or psychological made Riverside Stimulation Centre one big happy heterogeneous family.
“Riverside Stimulation Centre is such one big happy family with pupils and parents who enjoy and celebrate each other’s uniqueness.
“Our pupils build lasting social relationships regardless of their physical being. They learn to tolerate each other, they learn to encourage each other and they learn to celebrate their success in a true spirit of love. Alongside with the pupils the parents should receive and accept each other,” Mr Kunzekweguta said.
Owing to its last year’s splendid Grade 7 results, the school saw its enrolment increasing by 10 percent.
The school’s headmistress, Ms Margret Madenga, appealed to individuals and the corporate world for assistance to rehabilitate most of its infrastructure, which is now in a dilapidated state.
derick.khumalo
Online Reporter